:I was looking at one of the songs on Pandorapedia, and I noticed a funny structure in the Tree Song,

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:::'''Utralä aNawm'''

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:::ayrina' lu ayoeng,

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:::'''a''' peyä tìtxur mì hinam

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:::awngeyä

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:What we have here is apparently attributive '''a''' cleft from (fancy-pants linguistics talk for "separated from") the noun it goes with, '''utral'''. I asked Paul about this and he said,

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:Quote from: Karyu Pawl

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::Of course relative clauses that are separated from their heads are common in English: "I met a guy yesterday who came from Zimbabwe." But since "a" in Na'vi is so closely tied to its noun, I wouldn't want to make this a general option . . . except in poetry. :-)

Revision as of 23:49, 4 December 2012

The Na'vi language canon is the complete collection of information about the Na'vi language provided by authoritative sources, namely Paul Frommer and the creators of Avatar (James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox).

The canon comprises two things:

words and phrases spoken or written in Na'vi

descriptions of the linguistic elements of Na'vi such as orthography, morphology, syntax, and grammar

The Na'vi words and phrases from canonical sources are presented or linked to on the Corpus page (where copyright allows). Documentation, explanation, and analysis of Na'vi linguistics are presented on other Learn Na'vi wiki pages (Phonology, Morphology, Grammar, etc.). This page serves to document the canonical sources themselves. The majority of the examples on this page come from email correspondances with Frommer.

This page includes information dated July 2012 - December 2012.
To access past information please see:

Clefted "a"

I was looking at one of the songs on Pandorapedia, and I noticed a funny structure in the Tree Song,

Utralä aNawm

ayrina' lu ayoeng,

a peyä tìtxur mì hinam

awngeyä

What we have here is apparently attributive a cleft from (fancy-pants linguistics talk for "separated from") the noun it goes with, utral. I asked Paul about this and he said,

Quote from: Karyu Pawl

Of course relative clauses that are separated from their heads are common in English: "I met a guy yesterday who came from Zimbabwe." But since "a" in Na'vi is so closely tied to its noun, I wouldn't want to make this a general option . . . except in poetry. :-)